Agent Le Beau
by AlwayzWriting
Summary: Ace Le Beau, is amazing with machines, not so much with people. When she gets recruited by Director Fury to become S.H.I.E.L.D.'s newest (and youngest) agent she could have never imagined how much her life would change.
1. Chapter 1

Ace LeBeau had her hair pulled back from her face, a flashlight shoved in her mouth, her red and black eyes focused as she lie on the cold steel floor of the danger room's control center, tweaking "her baby" as she called it. No one was better with the danger room's equipment then her, except maybe the professor himself. Not even Forge could get it running like she could, and his mutation was mechanics. She sighed thinking over that, not only a family but an entire mansion full of mutants and she was the only non-mutant. Ace loved her family and she loved her home at the Xavier Institute, she just wished she could walk out of the danger room or her bedroom without some of the students looking at her with fear and distrust.

 _Ace could you come to my office please?_ The professor asked her mentally.

"Uh . . ." She looked at the wires that were spilling out of the consol, that could tangle her in seconds if she made one wrong move. "Give me ten minutes? Wild Card was fooling around in here yesterday and I want to make sure he didn't hurt my baby."

 _Very well, finish what you're doing and please hurry to my office._

"Roger that." Ace said nodding, before going back to work. Wild Card was her brother's team name, given to him for his fondness for using playing cards as weapons -much like their father- and his tendency to be unpredictable, a trait he shared with her and their sister, a trait that they all got from their mother. She had caught him trying to change the settings to his personal run and had managed to offset the entire system. Humming to herself as she made her corrections then put up the wires and closed the panel. "There we go baby." She said, patting the consol affectionately, before going off and making her way to the professor's office.

Inside the office she found the professor sitting at his desk with a tall, dark skinned gentleman standing behind him, his back toward them and her mother sitting there looking tense.

"Mom? What's going on?" She asked concerned.

"You're a genius, non-mutant in a house full of mutants." The man said over his shoulder.

"I'm not sure I'd say genius." Ace said wringing her hands, nervously. It was true that she had graduated last year at 15, a fact that made Jack green with envy, he was actually having to re-take a couple classes, but she didn't think that made her a genius. Not like Hank or the professor.

"Ace, this is Director Fury from Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." Xavier told her.

"That's a mouthful." She couldn't help but say.

"Ace." Her mother said softly. At first Ace had thought her mother was reprimanding her, until she noticed her mother's clawed hand out reaching for her, and the older woman looked a little pale.

"Mom?" She repeated, taking her mother's hand. Selene Davis, tucked her youngest daughter's hair back behind her ear and gave a sad smile. The woman had a natural healing factor, but the thought of possibly saying goodbye to her youngest child tore at her heart.

"Director Fury would like to offer you a position with his agency." She said.

"What?" Ace could barely believe it.

"You're a perfect candidate, Miss LeBeau. We could use you as an ambassador for the X-Men in the agency, and the professor tells me that you are quite good with mechanics, a useful skill."

"You want . . .but I . . .Mom?"

"Could we have a minute?" Selene asked. The two men nodded then silently left the room. "Ace, this is completely your choice. I know that as much as you love this institute you don't feel like you fit in." Ace looked a bit sheepish. "That's why you spend so much time in the danger room or your bedroom."

"What about you and Fleur, and Jack?"

"We'll be right here, you'll know where to find us. I think that's part of the point too." Selene added that last part a bit cynically. She didn't fully trust any kind of agency like the one Fury was in charge of, reminded her too much of the mercenary group she'd been involved with under Major Stryker. "You can always come home if you don't like it." Ace nodded, and the two men came in soon after.

"I'll do it." She told the director.

"Good, I'll give you time to pack." He said. Selene watched her daughter leave then turned to the agent.

"Director Fury, you are taking one of my children into your care, something I don't view lightly, and should my daughter come to any harm while working for your division, just remember that nothing motivates her family like revenge." She warned then turned and followed her daughter.

Three hours later Ace was standing in a base, being entered into the system so she would be allowed access to certain parts of the area, then led to a lab where she was allowed free reign, then to shown to the command center where she would likely be called often for consultations. The only thing she liked about the command center was all the high tech computers and comm systems, but the lab is where she quickly made her home and over the course of the next year made a name for herself among the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents for always coming up with new toys. A few claimed she was Tony Stark without the billions of dollars and narcissism, something she wasn't entirely sure how to take. Still the agents loved her toys. Especially Agent Barton who grinned like a kid at Christmas every time she presented him with a new type of arrow, while she didn't particularly enjoy making weapons she did enjoy all the different components you could give an arrow to make it more effective as a weapon and a tool.

Ace was in the middle of a phone call with her mom when Fury walked into her office and stood there looking at her.

"Mom, I'm going to have to call you back." She said, distractedly, then hung up. "Can I help you sir?"

"Suit up, LeBeau, you're going to New York." Fury told her."I want you to keep an eye on Stark."

"Stark sir?"

"He's announced that he's closing down his weapons division, I want you to find out why."

"How should I do that, sir?"

"You're the genius, you figure it out." Fury told her leaving the lab.


	2. Chapter 2

Keeping an eye on Tony Stark was a nightmare. Ace had to watch him from two blocks away just so he wouldn't catch on to her, and even then she wasn't certain that he wasn't aware of her presence. After his announcement the man spent a lot of time in his R&D floors, she knew Fury thought Stark was up to something, but she couldn't help but wonder what the director thought he might be up to. It didn't help her that almost every time he moved she became distracted by something in the lab.

"I thought Natasha and I taught you better than this." She jumped turning to look at Clint who was standing in the doorway, holding a bag from Taco Bell, in his hands.

"Jesus, Clint!" Ace exclaimed studying him. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought you might be hungry, and I brought good news."

"Aww, is it my birthday?" She asked, sarcastically turning back to the window.

"Yes, but that has nothing to do with why I'm here." Clint replied.

"Yes what?" She asked spotting what looked like pieces of a metal suit. "What are you doing Stark?"

"Yes, it's your birthday." The agent said behind her. He pulled her away from the telescope and sat her on the bed. "Congratulations, little baby Ace. You are officially 18."

"No, I'm not. My birthday isn't until October and it's . . ." She looked at the calender on her phone. "Huh, it's my birthday." Along with the date she saw she had four missed phone calls, two of which were from her mom.

"Here kid." Clint said handing her two five layer burritos. Her favorite. Before she dug in though she decided to call up her brother since it was technically his birthday too, only to get his voicemail. She left a quick message then turned back to her friend.

"So why are you here if not for my birthday?"

"You're obsession just returned stateside, and Fury wants you to tail him."

"I'm not obsessed with Dr. Banner, I'm just a big fan of his work." She had stumbled across Dr. Bruce Banner's file during one of her hacking exploits and was fascinated by what she discovered, both his work as a scientist and as the creature.

"I'm surprised you're not a big fan of Stark's work, are we sure you're not related?"

"Haha, my dad's a card hustler and con man, down in New Orleans." Ace said without a trace of either bitterness or affection in her voice. When they'd been little Remy LeBeau A.K.A. Gambit was a doting father who came to visit them once a week at the institute after their mom, settled in there, but after a while once a week turned to twice a month, to once a month, to once every few months until he just stopped coming around. Ace LeBeau hadn't seen her dad since her graduation, and it had been years before that.

"Still tomorrow Fury would like for you to go to Culver University and try to track him down, and I'm going to be watching Stark."

"Knock yourself out on that one. He hasn't left his R&D lab for days." Ace pulled out her hand held scanner and switched to function mode and started idly playing with it.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Clint asked, watching her. "How come you never talk about having a boyfriend? I hear you talk all the time about your mom, your sister, your brother, your "baby", but you never say anything about a boyfriend."

"That's easy, I've never had one. Growing up at Mutant High and being a non-mutant I was often looked at with fear or distrust. I will admit there was one guy I had been trying to get up the courage to ask out before Fury showed up." She slid the screen on her scanner and pulled up a picture of her long ago crush. "His name was Piotr Rasputin, everyone just called him "Pete" since it was easier to pronounce. Naturally what first drew my eye to him was his size, but he's one of those gentle giant types, and he's very talented at drawing."

"You should give him a call, and try it sometime."

"When? Granted I have a lot more free time than I let on, but he's officially an X-Man now."

"Now see, now you're just making up excuses." Clint said stretching out on the bed next to hers. Ace smiled and shook her head, before going back over to the telescope and watching Stark, after a while she sighed and made for the door, feeling restless after her conversation with the agent.

"Be careful out there." He called. Ace wondered around the streets trying to sort through her thoughts, after talking about Colossus she was tempted to call him, but what would she say? 'Hi was just talking about you and thought I'd give you a ring?' Yeah right. She bumped into someone and looked up seeing the individual was dressed in red and black, with two katanas strapped to his back.

"Hey, cutie." He greeted, getting close to her face. "You look familiar, have I ever targeted you?"

"Not that I'm aware of, and believe me I'd be aware of it."

"Ooo, so you feel the pull to?" He asked, pulling her against him.

"No, I live on a military base, I'm pretty sure I'd be made aware if someone was intruding." She replied, pushing back against him. "Will you let go of me?"

"I swear you look familiar to me." He said, getting closer to her.

"Wade! It would be wise of you to put my daughter down." Ace looked over stunned to see her mom standing at the end of the alley.

"Daughter?" Wade looked closer at Ace, then let her go grabbing a handful of her chest as he did. "No wonder you look familiar."

"Wade!" Selene yelled, slashing him across the face, tearing at his mask.

"Oooo, wait Selene, you know I would never have hurt her. Though she doesn't look anything like Vicky."

"Wrong daughter." Fleur said hopping down next to their mother. This Wade guy did a double take then ran up to Fleur grabbing her hands.

"Oh please oh please come home with me! We could do things to each other that they don't teach in Karma Sutra and in the morning I'll make pancakes."

"Wade if you don't stop harassing my daughters I swear I will cut off your head." Selene yelled.

"Come on, Selene twenty-five years later and you still got to ruin my fun. Can I at least see you naked now?" Ace stood there completely dumbfounded.

"What the hell is going on here?" She yelled.

"Chill sis." Fleur said, with the same bored voice she always had. "Mom and I are following up a lead on a mission and unfortunately this Bozo is one of our contacts."

"You are definitely Victor's daughter, I had thought only he could sound so bored doing a mission." Wade said off to the side, and Fleur reached out and punched him, his head hanging limply to the side. "I think you broke my neck."

"Happy birthday, Ace. We'll call you soon." Her mom said grabbing the strange mutant by the neck and slamming him into a wall. Ace turned around and made her way back to the hotel trying to put the whole scene out of her head.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day Ace ended up at Culver University and kept her eyes open for Dr. Banner, giving a little smile when she spotted him hiding behind a tree watching a young woman. She kept her distance watching him, making sure not to draw any attention to herself. After watching her for only a few minutes he turned and walked away, Ace counted to 10 before getting up and following him. He went to a small, pizza place and she entered an art store, directly across the street, keeping her eyes peeled on the front door of the pizza shop.

"Update." Fury called in her ear.

"Dr. Banner entered a pizza place, I'm keeping an eye out but I think he found a hole." She returned. The art shop was, closing soon and unless he went out the back Dr. Banner hadn't come out in hours. Not long after thinking that she spotted him wearing a hat, sport jacket and carrying a pizza bag, heading to the delivery car. "Got him." She informed, then left the art store where she was being reminded again of Pitor. "A car of my own would be nice." She told Fury, hot wiring an old Toyota and following after him

"We'll put it on the requisitions list." Fury replied. They returned to the university and she sat in the car, which smelled an awful lot like bad cheese and made her want to be sick to her stomach, for about an hour before Banner came back out and returned to the pizza shop. This was going to be a long night. A few minutes later Banner came running out from the back of the store and started walking down the road. Ace climbed out of the car and followed after him on foot, wanting to tie the doctor up just to make sure he'd stay in one place. Tony Stark was a socialite and he didn't move around this much.

"Fury, will you tell Hawkeye, I'll switch back?"

"You asked for Banner, you got him." Fury replied, and she swore she could hear the smirk in his voice.

"I miss my lab." She confessed, especially when it started to down pour. And then when Dr. Banner got into a car and drove off. Scowling Ace pulled out her handheld and quickly looked up information on the license plate, and then on Elizabeth 'Betty' Ross. "I need transport." She informed. Thankfully she didn't have to wait long before one of their black cars pulled up and she climbed in soaked to the bone. "Go to this address." She informed the driver turning the heat up full blast. They arrived and waited.

If only Ace had known the nightmare that the next day would bring, she wouldn't have complained so much about the rain or Dr. Banner not staying still.

She wasn't entirely sure what happened, they had gone to the university again - Ace was getting real tired of the campus- and then all of a sudden all hell broke loose, the Army was there attacking Dr. Banner who had turned into this huge green creature, and had quickly turned the campus into a battle zone. They had almost had him beat when they turned on some sort of machine that was emitting enough noise she could actually see it pushing him back, and then he destroyed those with doors from one of the vehicles that he'd destroyed, there was an explosion or something, and then he was gone. Ace pulled up her scanner and was able to keep track of him, and where he came to a stop in the mountains, she let Fury know where he was, and the director told her to take the rest of the day off and get some rest. Sighing heavily she made her way to Winchester and decided to stop by home, hoping to get a certain mutant out of her mind if she did.

"Any one home?" She called and blushed a bit when Pete was the one who stepped out of the living room to greet her.

"I'm babysitting while the others are on a mission." He informed.

"Pete, it's good to see you." She said. The two stood there a bit awkwardly, as a couple kids ran by. "How's everything going?"

"Good, everyone misses you." He replied and they started walking down the hall toward the back yard.

"I doubt everyone misses me. I can still see a few of them think I shouldn't be here." She said noticing a couple students watching her warily.

"Ok, maybe not everyone but a bunch of us." Ace blushed at his usage of the term 'us'. "Your birthday was the other night right?"

"Did everyone remember except for me?" She threw in, surprised that he knew.

"I have something for you." He continued, and grabbed his sketch book from off the kitchen table and went through it, finally handing her a drawing of the mansion with her family standing in front of it.

"Wow, thanks." Ace said studying the picture.

"I was originally going to put everyone in there but there wasn't enough room."

"It's wonderful." She looked up at him not realizing how close he'd gotten while they looked at the picture together. Slowly she leaned forward and kissed him, softly, and was surprised when he kissed her back. They pulled apart and Ace bit her lip, wondering what would happen next.

"I shouldn't have done that." Pete said, glumly. That was not what she wanted to happen.

"What?"

"You're normal, Ace, you have a chance at a normal life."

"Normal?! Pitor I graduated high school at 15, I have been declared a genius, I'm eighteen and work for a government agency. I don't think that's exactly normal." She shouted. "Thank you though for showing me where you draw a line." She snapped then started marching away.

"Wait, Ace. Please, I didn't mean for it to come out like that." Pete said grabbing her arm.

"Pete, at this point I'm not sure you can say anything that will make up for that."

"Ace, I like you, a lot ever since my first day here when you slammed into me chasing after Wild Card. You've tried to kill me a few times in the danger room just to see how far I could be pushed. You're brilliant, and beautiful, but I'm afraid that a relationship between us wouldn't work." He told her, slowly choosing his words so he didn't make the same kind of blunder as before. "It has nothing to do with whether or not you're a mutant, but more of like you said, you've been declared a genius and work for a government agency, I'm afraid that we would never get to see each other and when we did I would be afraid that you'd get bored with me."

"Colossus, let me worry about my mental stimulation, and as far as us never seeing each other . . .it would be hard, but I'm willing to try if you are." The mutant stood there for a moment searching her eyes then slowly nodded, and kissed her again.

Ace spent the night at the mansion, spending most of her time talking with Pete, until the others came back and then she got swept away in current happenings, and a never ending flow of conversation from her old friends.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day she was called back on to the trail of what had now been deemed The Hulk, after a news interview with a civilian. They had tracked him to a contact whose office she was sitting outside of now, and she couldn't shake this restless feeling she had like something was going to happen. When a convoy showed up she was starting to get irritated. Who the hell were these guys and what did they want with Hulk?

"Easy, LeBeau, your stats are showing an increase in heart rate." Fury informed.

"Something's not right here." She replied.

"I agree, but your job is to observe, not interfere."

"Yes, sir. Director, remind me next time, that I'm better suited for the lab."

"Will do, and speaking of lab, we found a design in that lab of yours for what looks like a massive transport, care to explain?"

"It's a helicarrier, I designed it after carrier ships, but with the intention of it being able to be airborne as well as a seafaring vessel."

"Could you get it to work?" Fury asked.

"If I had the funds and right equipment, absolutely. It would take a couple years to build, even at my pace, but it could very well be done." She saw Banner being wheeled out on a gurney and the general leaning over to say something to him before he was loaded into the convoy and they moved out. Ace's orders were to follow Banner, but a gut feeling told her to wait, that she wasn't done here.

"What would you do for stealth? Something this big would not be easy to hide?" Fury asked, and Ace became very much aware of what he was doing. He was trying to calm her nerves, by discussing something she was far more sure of.

"What about reflecting mirrors?"

"We may have a new task for you when you get back, LeBeau." Fury told her. Ace smiled but then it felt like a missel launched itself into the car she was in and it flipped over on its side.

"Ah, shit, what was that?" She groaned, pulling out her scanner, to make sure it didn't break, only to stare. "Sir, I got a gamma spike that is not coming from Banner, I repeat not coming from Banner."

"Permission to pursue." Fury informed. Ace made to move out of the car, but winced and took a quick assessment of her injuries.

"Negative sir, I've got a couple broken ribs, and I think possibly a concussion." She left out the part about the shard of glass in her side. She was going to be stuck in medical for a while.

"Copy that, we'll send evac to you right away." Ace winced again, then grabbed her hand held again and called up Pete.

"Didn't think I'd hear from you so soon." He said, a smile in his tone.

"Yeah, I'm full of surprises today." She told him.

"Are you ok Ace? You sound funny."

"Oh yeah, I'm just peachy. Just trying to stay awake while I'm waiting for my ride." She closed her eyes against the pain in her sides, but fought off any noise she might make to give away that she was hurt.

"Why don't you come to the mansion again tonight? I'll come get you."

"No!" She yelled then groaned at the pain from her response. "I would but the director already has a new project he wants me to work on as soon as I get back to base."

"Ace, what's going on?"

"I told you, I'm trying to stay awake while I'm waiting for my ride." That was true.

"What aren't you telling me? Hiding things is not a good way to start this relationship. I know you won't be able to tell me about missions and things like that but I can tell that right now you are purposefully keeping something from me." Ace winced, wondering where the hell her evac was.

"Alright, I'll tell you, but you got to stay calm and not freak out."

"Ok?"

"I was just in an accident and I'm pretty sure I have a concussion, so I need you to keep me awake until my evac gets here."

"Where are you?"

"Pete, you can't be here, right now. I was on a mission when it happened."

"Damn it, Ace! I want to be there and help you."

"I know you do, but you can't."

"LeBeau, are you there?" Finally her evac arrived.

"No, I went out for a movie and ice cream." She snarked.

"We're going to work on getting you out."

"Really? I thought you were going to paint me a picture." She tried to laugh at her own wit but hissed instead. Sarcasm was a defense mechanism for her whenever she was hurt, and people made it so damn easy to be sarcastic when you were hurt, always either stating the obvious or asking stupid questions.

"Don't worry, you should have been here when Barton shot her with one of the arrows she designed for him." One of the agents said to the other.

"You were shot?!" Pete said on the other line.

"It was a year ago and it wasn't that bad." She replied, as the two started working on opening her car.

"Yeah, a fractured spine is no big deal any more. Is that a piece of glass" Ace quickly ended the phone call there, "in your side?"

"Nope, just a butterfly." They got her out of the car and strapped to a gurney, with a lot of sarcastic remarks and pain on her end, then up into a S.H.I.E.L.D. ambulance and taken back to base, where she was immediately worked on.

The next morning she woke up and was surprised to see Pete sitting there next to her, drawing.

"What are you doing here, Pete?"

"I asked very graciously to be let in after you hung up on me last night." He studied her from head to toe. "Four broken ribs, a punctured lung, eighteen stitches and a minor concussion. Please tell me this isn't an normal occurrence."

"No, normally I'm brought in here for superficial burns, or cuts. I don't normally do too much field work."

"Good, cause I started to panic when the line went dead last night." He leaned forward and kissed her lightly.

"Ace." Director Fury called from the door. "I need to de-brief you on the mission, and your design was approved this morning, so we need you on your feet and in your lab soon."

"Yes, sir."

"As for now, spend a couple hours with your guest, who I hope will not make a habit out of coming to my base unannounced with his skin turned to metal." Fury directed a pointed look at Pete who sat there looking rather proud. The director turned and walked out of the room.

"You realize I'm going to be the one to get in trouble for that right?"


	5. Chapter 5

The helicarrier was a work in progress, they were keeping a silent eye on Tony Stark, his being Iron Man was all over the news and Ace got to spend a weekend out of every month with her family, and Pete.

"What if we go by the Stark Expo next month?" Pete asked running his fingers through her hair, while her head rested on his lap. They'd been together for almost a year, and while it had indeed been hard to coordinate spending time with each other, she had yet to get bored with him like he had feared.

"Uh-huh, sounds great." Ace muttered, working on some calibrations for the helicarrier that were being sent instantly to the rest of the crew building it.

"You know I thought it would be nice to do something different for a change than hanging out in the mansion."

"That is a great idea." She replied, absently. Finally Pete sighed and stood up grabbing her handheld. "Pete!"

"I'm sick of this." He announced. "Ever since you started working on this thing, you're never fully here when you're here."

"Yes, I am. You want to go to the expo next month." She replied, telling him that she was paying attention.

"You might have heard me say that but you don't care. You're too busy with your next new invention to focus on us. At first I thought it was kind of cute, part of your charm, but now I am tired of it." Pete's Russian accent became more and more pronounced with each word he said telling her just how upset he was. "It's either gadgets or me."

"You're really telling me to choose between you and my job."

"You are a smart young woman, you could easily find a new job."

"Do you really think that? Do you really think that they would just let me go, with all the information I know on them? I make a good portion of their equipment, so I could easily disable it, if I wanted. I know agents who work there. I know some of the people they're watching. So do you really think that they would allow me to just leave? If they let me live, the only way I could quit would be to disappear entirely, either by their means or mine."

Pete was silent for a long moment thinking carefully over his words and hers, then finally he sighed and put her handheld on the coffee table in front of her.

"I can't be with you if you can't be with me fully." He then, walked out of the living room. Ace sat there afterward feeling rather confused. Wasn't she supposed to be upset that she and her boyfriend of a year broke up? Shouldn't she be chasing after him and pleading with him not to leave her, that she would work less while she was with him? Oddly she didn't feel any of that, didn't feel hurt, certainly didn't feel like making a fool out of herself with those types of promises. If anything she felt relieved, like a pressure had been taken off her shoulders.

She hadn't meant to make Pete feel like she was ignoring him, she just tended to get distracted by her work. Getting up off the couch she grabbed her hand held and left the mansion. Deciding to go to Brooklyn and visit the Captain, who was once again pounding away on a punching bag.

"Hey Cap." She called sitting in the bleachers watching him.

"Hey kid, what are you doing here?"

"Do I need a reason to come visit everyone's favorite captain?"

"Without your customary grin?" She gave the captain a small smile. "What's on your mind?"

"I was just thinking that maybe I spend too much time working." She confessed. "My boyfriend just dumped me because I was so focused on my work."

"I'm not exactly, an expert on relationships, but I suppose that if the person meant enough to you you'd cut back on work on your own, or if they cared about you enough they wouldn't mind you working so much." She thought about that, and nodded seeing the sense in that. She looked over and noticed a picture sitting near her on the bleachers picking it up she smiled at the image of the handsome man standing next to the captain. "That's Bucky. My best friend growing up." He sat next to her and smiled. "I think you would have liked him, and he would have loved you."

"What do you mean?"

"Bucky, would have given you a hard time about being so young, so smart, but he would never let anyone else try it."

"Sounds like a big brother to me, and I already have one of those." Ace replied, with a smile and continued to study the picture. "What happened to him?"

"He fell off a train, when we were infiltrating HYDRA."

"I'm so sorry." Ace said, handing the picture back to him. "I couldn't imagine what that must be like. . ." Ace thought about it and realized, "I guess I've never really had a friend before."

"Never?"

"Growing up at the institute I either spent time in the danger room control center or in my room, and even while I've been working with S.H.I.E.L.D. I only ever spent time in the lab or the control center as a consultant. Wow saying that out loud I see a trend."

"Well now that you see what the problem is maybe now you can fix it." Steve told her.

"Maybe." She replied. "Well, I'll let you go Steve, I'll see you around." Ace stepped out of the gym and got into her car and drove back to the base. On her way to the lab she paused by the shooting range and watched Hawkeye practicing with his bow.

"Home from you're romantic weekend so soon?" Clint asked, not even turning around to face her.

"Yeah, things didn't work out between me and Pete."

"That's too, bad. How you holding up?"

"Better than you think. Hey, could you train me in hand to hand combat?"

"Sure, what are friends for?"

"You really think we're friends?" Ace asked, unable to help herself.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" Ace smiled and followed Clint to the gym, where he proceeded to train her. "You know Nat and I have always kind of seen you as a bit of a little sister, and I think even the director sees you a little differently from the others." Ace blushed at that.


	6. Chapter 6

Ace glanced up from the special prototype she was working on and looked at the tv where they were showing Tony Stark being sued for not classifying his suit as a weapon. She rolled her eyes going back to her tinkering, before sighing and putting it away.

"The metal's not right." She muttered, then walked out of her room going to the work site to work some more on her heli-carrier. Every time she saw it she couldn't help but feel proud that one of her designs was becoming a reality.

"Why am I not surprised to see you here?" Ace looked at Coulson and smiled.

"Because I'm dedicated?"

"You are a workaholic." He returned. "Even when you're on free time you're either in your room tinkering around or in the lab working on something."

"That's not true. Sometimes I go to the gym and work on my combat skills with Natasha or Clint."

"Exactly, work. I don't think you know the meaning of the word fun."

"Is there something you need, Phil?" Ace asked, getting tired of the conversation.

"Fury wants to know if you've run the numbers for Stark's pallidum toxicity levels?"

"Of course, I did. If my calculations are correct, if Tony Stark takes things easy and doesn't use the suit then he could potentially live until the end of the month, but calculating what I know about Stark . . .I honestly don't think he'll live until the end of next week. The very thing meant to save his life is indeed killing him."

"Could you make a cure?" Ace thought about it carefully, then ran up the numbers on her handheld, She really needed to find a way to make it hands free.

"Possibly, but I would need a sample of the toxin, and looking at the time line I'm not so sure it would be a cure, but it would slow down the pallidum enough so that he might possibly do it."

"I'll let Fury know, now get back to work on your big baby." Ace smiled and ran over to the ship and started helping with it right away.

A few days later she was in the lab working on a cuff so that she could wear her handheld on her wrist when a flashing on her t.v. screen caught her attention. There was a man on the race track in France wearing something similar to the Iron Man suit, and attacking the racers with whips, that were emitting some sort of charge much like Iron Man's.

"That's not good." She commented watching.

"LeBeau!" She jumped looking over her shoulder, at Fury. "Suit up, you're going to France. I want information on that man and those whips."

"Yes, sir." She called, then quickly slipped on her shoes and raced out the door, Fury looking her over with a scowl. "What? I'm a lab person, I don't have an actual suit."

"You do now, it's in your foot locker. Did you really think I would send an agent on a foreign mission dressed like they're going for a jog?" Ace looked down at her running pants and tank top and shrugged, before rushing to her quarters to change. The suit was a lot like Natasha's except, thankfully, her boots had a flat heel. For all her tech savvy Ace couldn't walk in heels if her life depended on it. After changing she ran out to the waiting jet and climbed on board with her pocket tools and her current project so she wouldn't be tempted to mess with her transportation while it was moving . . .again. Fury still hadn't forgiven her for that one and Clint refused to ride with her unless she had something to occupy her mind and her hands. By the time they reached France she had her cuff completed and was running the last few calibrations when Natasha arrived to pick her up from the landing zone.

"What do we know about the guy?" She asked Natasha.

"His name is Ivan Vankov, and he's Russian, that's all we have so far, but he's not your focus, his weapon is."

"Roger that." Ace replied. Once at the prison she was amazed at how quickly they got escorted to evidence. "I wish I knew French." She muttered as Natasha talked to the guards.

"I thought you knew French, because of your dad."

"Yeah, not so much, my dad was Cajun and so I know a few French words but not enough to get me anywhere." They entered the evidence lock up and she carefully looked over the components. "Very nice." She commented, going over every inch, for the next few hours, after she was done she looked at Natasha and rubbed her eyes. "I can tell you two things, this man is a genius and he is somehow connected to Stark. The technology behind this is very similar to that of Iron Man."

"Miss Potts is going to have fun cleaning up the backlash from this."

"Speaking of cleaning up, I need a sample of the pallidum Mr. Stark uses to power his arc reactor."

"Why?"

"To stave off the poison in his system from it."

"Tony's having a big birthday party at his Malibu house, I'll encourage him to get a little more drunk than usual, and you can work your genius to get into his workshop and get what you need."

"Sounds good, when is it?"

"Tomorrow." Just then her scanner started going off, notifying her to some strange atmospheric readings in the southwest.

"Oh, I'm so going to be missing out on sleep this week." She groaned contacting Fury about the readings, they'd been occurring steadily for weeks now and S.H.I.E.L.D. was wanting answers.


	7. Chapter 7

Clint followed Ace down to Tony's workshop, as the party got into high gear upstairs. He claimed he was there for back up, she just thought he was there so he wouldn't miss a minute of her being in a dress. A tight, tiny, black dress at that. Every time she glanced at him he had this shit eating grin on his face like he was trying to keep from laughing.

"You do not have permission to be here." The V.I. informed her, but before any notice could be sent to Stark, not that he would acknowledge it in his current state, she managed to override the security protocols.

"You are good, Stark I'll give you that." She commented hacking through his system in case the V.I. wasn't the only security in the room. "I'd love to play chess with this guy sometime."

"I'll be sure to tell Nat so she can put it in his date book." Clint whispered, watching the hallway.

"Can't. After I work, all night, on this antidote you and I are on a plane first thing in the morning to New Mexico." Ace reminded. "We're in." She informed, pushing open the door and going over to the desk. Ace found a box that contained exactly what she was looking for. She grabbed a burnt out one and one of the full ones, shutting the box right before they heard someone coming downstairs. "Shit." She went to hide under the desk, but Clint grabbed her arm, sitting her on the desk, untucked his shirt, unzipped the back of her dress and kissed her hard on the mouth, running his fingers, through her hair. Ace grabbed the front of his shirt to shove him away, when the door opened.

"How did you two get in here?" She looked up to see Rhodes standing there looking disturbed and embarrassed.

"Oh, the door was unlocked." Clint covered real quick, since Ace was trying her hardest not to start wiping off her tongue.

"It shouldn't have been, and I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Ace quickly nodded and rushed out of the room, back up the stairs and out the door.

"Ew ew ew!" She yelled giving in to the urge to sputter and spit.

"Come on, was kissing me really that bad?" Clint teased.

"I felt like my brother just stuck his tongue down my throat." Ace explained, then reached around to zip up her dress but couldn't reach. Clint chuckled, walking up to her and zipping it, his hands freezing over the marks on her back where he'd fired one of the arrows she'd designed for him and it had been the only time he'd been distracted enough to misfire and the head split into two hitting her at the top and base of her spine. Ace had been severely lucky the arrows hadn't done anything more than fracture her spine.

"I don't even remember what made me mess up that bad."

"I do. I had just told you that I was only seventeen, making me S.H.I.E.L.D.'s youngest agent. I remember because no one would shut up about how lucky I was that the injury hadn't killed or paralyzed me, and you came by my room everyday to make sure I was ok."

"That's right, you kept saying you were fine, just bored out of your mind. Speaking of your mind, we better go so you can use yours to make that antidote for Stark and then if I'm lucky you'll sleep the whole way to New Mexico."

"If you're lucky." They made it to their mobile base where she began working away on synthesizing an antidote, and just as she figured the first rays of sunlight were coloring the sky when she finished, and handed it to Natasha. "It's made for quick delivery, inject it into his neck and if I did my work right you should see an instant reaction."

"I heard you had your first cover up last night." Nat said, a teasing smile on her lips.

"Oh, please don't remind me. In three years you two have sort of become my surrogate siblings and for him to kiss me like that -" Ace broke off and shuddered. "I feel dirty."

"Sometimes the job calls for quick thinking like that. I better go so you can go figure out what's going on in New Mexico." Ace rolled her eyes snapping her fingers in Clint's ear to wake him up so they could catch their flight, where luck did favor him, as soon as the jet took off she was unconscious.


	8. Chapter 8

After mingling with the crowd all day and listening to more idle chit chat and town gossip than Ace knew could possibly exist she was finally relieved to hit upon a couple of scientists who were talking about going out tonight to investigate what was going on. She met up with Clint in their black car and gave him the location of there next focal point.

"You're a little sunburnt." He pointed out.

"These anomalies are apparently always proceeded by geometric storms and the last seventeen have been predictable to the minute." She circled the map in her hands and showed her friend where they were going next. By the time they made it to their location the wind was stirring and they got out looking at the sky.

"Any idea what we're looking for?"

"Not a clue." Ace admitted. Over in the northeast they noticed some odd glowing clouds and looked up at it then each other curiously. Massive clouds of rainbow lights could be seen, and her scanner started going nuts. "I believe that's it." She said.

"What should we do?"

"We can't really go into the sky to investigate, so lets just watch and see what happens." The wind started to howl and a tornado came down out of the cloud, suffused with the strange rainbow light, roaring loudly as it touched down. "Uh-oh." Her scanner started flashing brightly on her wrist, the readings off the charts in reaction to the phenomenon. A huge bolt of lightning struck down through the funnel of the tornado, with a terrifying intensity. And then it started to evaporate.

"That was intensely entertaining, but uh, is there anything we should be worried about with it?" Ace was checking the readings on her scanner when something crashed down behind her sending her flying forward as it opened a crater. "Ace!"

"Ok, that hurt." She groaned, slowly rising to her hands and knees, trying to get air back in her lungs. Clint helped her up and the two made their way to the edge of the crater and spotted something inside. "Please tell me it's not a spaceship with a little boy in it." Clint winced at her bad joke and climbed down into the crater and stared at the object.

"It's a hammer." He called, and tried to pull it out. "And it's not coming out." Coughing as she joined him she ran her scanner over it and stared.

"I don't think it's from around here." She commented. "Call it in." Ace climbed out of the hole and stared up at the sky. Whatever happened just now was mind blowing and she couldn't wrap her head around it. A rainbow colored tornado? Her equipment reacting like it was having it's own personal fiesta? A hammer falling out of the sky?

"They're sending a team tomorrow, for now we are to check into a hotel and get some rest." Clint informed.

They made it to the hotel and Ace climbed on her bed and sighed. She was fine with pulling all nighters, she usually did them unintentionally all the time but the past twenty-four hours had possibly been the longest of her life. Clint smiled and flopped onto his own bed. Both passing out almost instantly.

The next morning they got up and made their way to Isabela's Diner, barely noting the other patrons inside. Ace was completely useless without her breakfast. Ordering steak and eggs, and orange juice she waited, mind on stand-by mode until she got proper nourishment. Finally their food arrived and she started scarfing down as though it was her last meal.

"You and meat, I'm not so sure you're not completely feral." Clint said, referring to her mother's mutation. Something smashed behind them and they looked over their shoulders to see a group sitting in the middle of the diner.

"Another!" The blonde man called.

"Sorry, Izzy." One of the women called. "It was an accident." The two S.H.I.E.L.D. members turned back to their food and their conversation.

"No, trust me, I've undergone extensive testing no sign of the x-gene in me." She told him.

"You missed all the fun at the crater." Said a townie walking in and the two agents looked at each other, Ace checking her cuff for the time.

"What crater?" The owner asked.

"They're saying some kind of satellite crashed in the desert." The townie told her.

"We were having a good time with it till the feds showed up and chased us out." Clint and Ace looked at each other laying money on the counter for their bill taking off out of the restaurant, Ace holding her steak between her teeth as they rushed to the car.


	9. Chapter 9

They arrived at the site where the team was hard at work setting up a containment unit.

"You two are late." Coulson called seeing them.

"Ace needed to maul a cow before we could get here." Clint said, teasing the way she had attacked the steak on their way to the site. Coulson stepped aside, so that the girl could get to work doing what she did best.

"Oh there were some people in town who might have data on what happened last night." Ace called over her shoulder and Coulson rolled his eyes gathering up a team and heading into town. "That was easier than I thought." She commented to herself getting straight to work on making things run the way she liked it. Ace was setting up the mobile "Hawk's nest" for Clint when the agents returned.

"Is this all you've gotten done?" Clint teased, knowing that she probably had the base running 110% better than when Coulson's team first showed up, he couldn't help but laugh though when she stuck her tongue out at him. "You might want to look into some sun block, it looks like your sunburn is getting worse." He said noting how red she was. Ace looked at her shoulders and shrugged, looking up at the sky as a storm started to roll in. She stepped inside and proceeded to overlook all the techs at work, Coulson buzzing around her shoulder as she did.

"Coulson, why do you think Fury sent me all the way out here, when he normally doesn't let me leave New York?"

"Because you detected the anomaly." Coulson figured.

"If that was the case he would have had me return last night or this morning. I'm here because I'm a tech, now why don't you do what you do and leave me to do what I do?" Coulson made a face walking away.

"Feed from the keyhole. Can barely penetrate cloud cover." One of the techs told her and she frowned, at the static over the SAR shot. "Tech's barely working as it is with all the interference that that's giving off." He gestured to the hammer.

"I did what I could but I'm not a miracle worker." Ace said, obviously not happy about the fact that she couldn't get the equipment running perfectly.

"Hey we got a commercial aircraft coming in right over us, Southwest Airlines 5434."

"Reroute it." An agent said from next to her causing Ace to glare at him.

"Right can I get all the passengers some free drinks for their trouble." The agent glared at the tech, and Ace walked away obviously not needed there. A few minutes later she heard "Agents down. We got a perimeter breach." Called through the radio, and then her cuff scanner started reacting to some energy coming from the hammer, right before an alarm sounded. A few more minutes later she dove out of the way as an ATV came crashing through the tube she was in. Getting out of the tunnel Ace heard Coulson call on the radio that he wanted eyes high, and grinned knowing who was going to be taking on that job, as she ran to make it to the hammer herself. She met up with Coulson on an access way overlooking the hammer, her cuff giving off higher readings as the man got closer to the hammer.

"Barton." Coulson radioed to the man in the air. "Hold your fire." They watched the man try to pull the hammer out, screaming from the effort until finally he sank to his knees, and her cuff went silent, agents surrounding the man. As Coulson questioned the man Ace helped get things set back up, and a few hours later went back to her hotel room.

The next morning Ace made her way back to the diner for her breakfast waving up at the two agents posted on a rooftop, and froze seeing four figures dressed oddly walking down the street. As they walked up to the auto shop that was the scientists base of operations she shook her head and continued to the diner. It was too damn early to worry about it, and she needed food. An explosion caught her attention and she rushed out of the restaurant looking in the distance at the flames and the agents firing. Without a thought she started rushing toward the fire fight, even though she had no idea what she was going to do. It wasn't like she could hack the behemoth that was marching down the street. Before her eyes the four oddly dressed people started attacking the thing, two of them throwing the largest of them at it.

Thinking quickly Ace brought up her cuff switched it to function mode and started recording what was happening constantly moving to keep out of the action herself. An explosion rocked her back and she ended up stabbing her arm on a piece of iron. She yelled out but didn't stop recording. She winced as she watched the blonde from the day before get hit by the behemoth and go flying down the street. A blinding bolt of lightning crashed down from the sky and struck where the blond man was laying.

"Holy shit!" Ace couldn't help but say, then the man was standing up, the hammer from the crater in his hands, as he started attacking the entity before him. Her vision getting blurry from losing so much blood, she wasn't entirely certain what happened but she was able to figure out that the blonde with the hammer some how won. She saved the file before allowing herself to sink down right as she heard footsteps running up to her.

"Ace, hang in there kid."


	10. Chapter 10

Ace woke up back at base and recognized the infirmary, her arm wrapped tightly and her two closest friends standing in the corner talking.

"Bout time you woke up Sleeping Beauty, Nat has to go out on another mission in about an hour."

"What about Stark?" She asked groggily.

"My work with Stark has been wrapped up. He has been cleared to be a consultant for the Avengers Initiative." Natasha told her, a secret smile on her face as they approached her cot.

"And you once again got lucky." Clint told her pointing to her arm.

"What can I say I go big on my injuries." She joked sitting up. "How long are they keeping me locked in here?"

"You're free to go now." Natasha said, and that was all Ace needed to hear to be up and on her way out the door she hated to be out of commission for any amount of time. When she got to her lab she stared at the meteor rock that was laying on the main table she used.

"Adamantium, a gift from your father." She turned to Director Fury, surprised on multiple levels. Her dad had sent her a gift? Where did he get it? How did he know where to send it?

"Adamantium?" She repeated.

"An almost indestructible metal." Fury told her. "I wanted to tell you good work in New Mexico. We now know we are not alone in the universe." Ace kept her silence, she didn't like the sound of that and doubted that too many other races would count humans as allies. She knew humans were bullies, to themselves as well as other races, but that thought always led her to think about the possible, and in her mind, inevitable war between humans and mutants. Shaking the thought from her mind she picked up the rock studying it, wondering how to make it pliable. "I believe you have to heat it until it melts." Fury told her as though reading her thoughts as he headed out the door. Once he was gone she pulled out her phone and called her dad.

"There's my favorite girl." He called answering the phone. Ace gave a small smile hearing his smooth voice, with it's thick accent.

"Hey dad, I got the rock you sent me." She said, putting it in a pan and started heating it, she had a feeling it was going to be a long process.

"Nice huh? I got that off some guy I spotted who was up to no good. Thought maybe you could use it with all your tinkering you do. How've you been mon ami?" Ace looked down at her arm smiling to herself.

"Working, a lot as usual, but I love my job so I'm not going to complain." She pulled out her prototype and started working on it a bit.

"I wish I could see some of the things you work on, but your mom says it's all highly classified?"

"Yeah, I can't talk about work. How's New Orleans right now?"

"Beautiful like always. Maybe you could come down for Mardi Gras." Ace thought about it then looked at the image of her big baby and sighed.

"I would dad, but I can't I'm working on this huge project right now. If we're lucky, and I stop finding ways to improve it, it should be done by next year."

"I see. Look, Ace, I know I haven't been the best dad that I could have been but I don't want you to doubt for a second that I love you."

"I don't, it's just it's hard. I spend all my time working on something, usually for my job, and I can't talk about most of it to anyone I don't work with." She heard someone call out for Remy and wasn't surprised when he told her that he had to go and hung up on her. Well at least he thought about her every now and then.


	11. Chapter 11

The helicarrier was done. It had been a year since the mission in New Mexico and Ace was happily living on her big baby, and was tweaking her prototype. She was so focused on it she actually jumped when her phone went off next to her.

"Go for LeBeau." She answered, knowing at this time of night it could only be Fury calling her.

"Agent Barton, has been compromised, the Tesseract stolen." Ace went completely still Clint was compromised? "I want you to go and retrieve Captain Rogers, we're going through with the Avengers Initiative."

"I'm on it." Ace rushed to her quarters and changed into her suit before rushing out to the jets and getting on board, holding up her prototype so the pilots would know that she wasn't going to be tampering with the electrical system. She strapped in and made her way to Brooklyn and stepped into the gym where Steve was attacking a punching bag, he sent it flying and busting open when it landed, going over he calmly picked up another one and started swinging away at it.

"Trouble sleeping?" Ace called, even as she walked over to the bleachers and looked at the picture of Steve and Bucky, a habit she'd gotten into since first seeing it.

"I slept for seventy years. I think I've had my fill."

"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world." Steve stopped hitting the punching bag walked over next to her, noticing her attire, as he started unwrapping the tape from his hands.

"I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we've won. They didn't say what we've lost." He told her.

"We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently."

"You here with a mission, Ace?"

"I am." She acknowledged.

"Trying to get me back in the world?"

"Trying to save it." She handed him a file that Fury had instructed her to grab if this current scenario were to ever happen.

"HYDRA's secret weapon."

"From what I've gathered Howard Stark fished that of the ocean when he was looking for you."

"From what you gathered? You don't know?"

"Nope, Fury hasn't let me anywhere near this one, for some reason." Ace admitted, she had offered her assistance over and over again on the Tesseract but Fury always replied that they had it covered.

"He thought what we think. The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs." She continued.

"Who took it from you?" He asked, handing the file back to her.

"He's called Loki. He's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."

"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me." The captain said cynically, and Ace instantly thought of her big baby.

"Ten bucks says you're wrong. There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment." She told him as he gathered his things and started leaving. "Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"

"You should have left it in the ocean." Steve replied. Ace sighed and left the building, she'd done what she could the rest was up to him, so she turned around and made her way back to the helicarrier.

The next day she was working blindly on her scanner trying to get it to pick up the gamma signature from the Tesseract, but the emissions were too low and she was too distracted by the fact that one of her best friends was in the hands of the enemy. This morning as she'd eaten her breakfast she couldn't help but recall all the times Clint had teased her for "attacking" her meat. The helicarrier started shaking as it prepared to go up in the air. She sighed closing her eyes trying once again to focus on her work.

Bruce followed Natasha to the lab who gave a knowing smile.

"Oh I should warn you not to worry about Ace." She said, as they rounded a corner.

"Ace?" He repeated.

"Our resident genius and hermit, hardly ever leaves the lab." They entered the lab and the first thing that Bruce noted was legs that never seemed to end, barely concealed in a pair of khaki shorts. "Ace I brought you a new playmate." Natasha called.

"Not now, Nat. I'm trying to re-calibrate my scanner. It can track Dr. Banner every time he Hulks-out but it can't pick up the damn cube!" She slammed her fist on the table.

"On that note I'll leave you two to have fun." Natasha said, leaving the room.

"So you can track me?"


	12. Chapter 12

Ace completely froze, then slowly turned around to face Dr. Bruce Banner. She stepped forward and grabbed his hand shaking it eagerly.

"I am a big fan of your work, Dr. Banner." Ace gushed. "Not just the whole temper thing, but your work on anti-electron collisions."

"Wait, you look way too young to be part of S.H.I.E.L.D. How old are you?"

"I'm twenty." She said proudly, going back over to her scanner. Just then the door opened and Steve walked in and Ace gave him her customary grin, that she seemed to save just for him. "Hey Captain. How do you like my big baby?" She asked rubbing one of the walls lovingly.

"She's amazing." He said, handing her ten dollars.

"You built the ship?" Bruce asked stunned.

"I designed her, and helped with actually building her everyday." Ace replied proudly.

"I was told you have my shield." Steve said, interrupting their conversation.

"Right . . ." Ace stood up and started looking around. "Where did I . . ." She spotted it under a table next to her prototype. "Here you go."

"You didn't tinker with it at all did you?" He asked a little nervously.

"No, I didn't, wanted to, but didn't. It's the same old shield you've always had." Steve nodded and walked out of the room.

"How does someone so young get their own science lab in an agency like S.H.I. .? How did you even get involved with them?"

"That's easy." Ace was actually grateful that Dr. Banner was talking to her as she got to work, since his talking to her got her mind off Clint. "I lived in and went to school at Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters. I have no mutant ability so I kind of stood out, even among my own family, but I graduated when I was fifteen and the professor let me have full run of this training modulator know affectionately as the Danger Room, and I'm not entirely sure how S.H.I.E.L.D. tracked me down at the institute. Maybe the professor told them, I don't know, never really thought about it."

"Natasha said you're a genius."

"Everyone says that." Ace told him rolling her eyes.

"You don't think so?"

"I know I'm smart, and I'm really good with tech, but I'm not entirely sure I'd go so far as to say genius." Bruce gave a small smile and they fell into an easy silence of two scientists at work, both doing what they can to find the Tesseract. After a few hours they were brought a strange scepter and both began analyzing it carefully, until a group of men passed by and they both looked up seeing who could only be Loki looking in at them straight at Dr. Banner and smiled, Bruce rubbed the bridge of his nose and Ace shivered from a shadowed feeling of dread that flooded her.

She headed to the briefing room Bruce following after her, where they saw everyone gathered around a monitor.

"The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to aide you?" Ace put her hand on the doctor's back she didn't think either he or the other guy were mindless beasts. Nor lost creatures.

"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did." Fury snapped back.

"Ooh. It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is." Loki gloated.

"Well you tell me if Real Power wants a magazine or something." Fury replied walking away. Ace looked up at the Avengers gathered around her, in tense silence.

"He really grows on you doesn't he?" Dr. Banner joked.

"Loki's going to drag this out. So Thor, what's his play?"

"His army is called Chitauri. They are not of Asgard or any world known. He plans to lead them against your people. They will win him earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army? From outer space?" Steve asked, obviously finding it just a little hard to believe.

"So he's building another portal." Ace commented.

"That's what he needs Eric Selvig for." Bruce added.

"Selvig." Thor repeated.

"He's an astrophysicist." Bruce informed.

"He's a friend." Thor clarified.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours." Natasha told them and Ace lowered her head at being reminded of Clint.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army here." Steve questioned.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki." Bruce told them. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you can smell crazy on him."

"I don't care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother." Ace winced at that.

"He killed eighty people in two days." Natasha informed.

"He's adopted." Thor added, Ace would have laughed if the situation wasn't so serious.

"Iridium, what did he need iridium for?" Bruce asked.

"It's a stabilizing agent." Ace said at the same time as Tony Stark who was walking into the room, both looking surprised at the other's answer.

"I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive." He said to Coulson, before turning back to those assembled. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D. No hard feelings Point Break, you got a mean swing." He said patting Thor on the arm.

"Also it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long as Loki wants." Ace said, getting frustrated with Stark's sidebars. The billionaire gave a bit of a pout before turning to the crew.

"Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails. That man is playing Galaga!" He said pointing to one of the crewmen. "Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did." He covered his eye looking at the controls. "How does Fury do this?"

"He turns." Agent Hill informed. Stark looked around the monitors.

"That sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is the power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics." Agent Hill asked, the very question that was on Ace's mind.

"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers, am I the only one who did the reading?" Stark replied. Ace ran a hand over her face, people really thought she was like this guy?

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." Bruce informed.

"Unless, Selvig figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." Stark pointed out.

"Well if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion in any reactor on the planet." Ace pointed out.

"Finally people who speak English." Tony said excitedly of her and Banner.

"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked and Ace gave him a sympathetic smile, as Stark shook hands with Banner.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

"Thanks." Bruce said, lowering his head timidly.

"I have no idea who you are." He said shaking Ace's hand.

"Ace LeBeau." Was all she replied, thankfully Fury saved her from any possible barrage of questions the billionaire might throw at her.

"Dr. Banner is only here to help Agent LeBeau track the cube. I was hoping you might join him."


	13. Chapter 13

The three brianiacs left the briefing room and instantly the questions started.

"So you're not here to help Dr. Banner? Maybe get his heart rate up when he needs a quick change in attitude?" Ace blushed at the implications of what Stark was suggesting.

"No, I've been working with S.H.I.E.L.D. for four years now." She answered.

"Really but you look so young."

"She's twenty." Dr. Banner informed.

"Another genius?" Stark guessed.

"That's what they say." Ace returned entering the lab, going over to her scanner and walking up to the scepter with it.

"Ok, what's with the name? Is it a code name or something?" The young woman rolled her eyes at that question.

"No, that is my real name. My dad is a bit of a card enthusiast." She replied, Dr. Banner joined her in scanning the scepter, their eyes locking briefly, as Tony started working on algorithms and equations.

"What about the eyes? Contacts?" Ace sighed, most people usually chose to ignore her red and black eyes, something else she could thank her father for.

"Nope these are my real eyes."

"Does any one else feel like something isn't adding up?" That question took her by surprise but she couldn't deny that there was something off about the whole situation.

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports with the Tesseract." He said.

"But even with my equipment it's gonna take weeks to process."Ace added.

"If we bypass the mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster we can clock this around six hundred teraflops." Stark put in.

"All I packed was a tooth brush." Dr. Banner informed. Stark smiled at the two.

"You know, you should come to Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd both love it, it's candy land."

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke . . . Harlem." Bruce replied.

"I never take leave." Ace answered.

"That's right, Coulson mentioned something about a genius workaholic who never leaves the lab." Tony said, and Ace rolled her eyes again. "Well I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises." Suddenly Stark poked Bruce with a miniature electrical rod, and Ace bit back a smile even as Steve stormed in the room, not amused.

"Ow." Tony looked at the scientist closely.

"Nothing?"

"Hey! Are you nuts?" Steve demanded.

"I believe so." Ace commented to herself about Stark.

"You really got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" Tony asked.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve demanded.

"Funny things are."

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor."

"No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce said, looking pointedly at the scepter that Ace was still processing.

"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut." Stark replied.

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." Steve scolded.

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call for us and why now? Why not before? Why not have his resident genius working on this from the beginning? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury is hiding something?" Steve asked.

"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." Stark pointed to the two by the scepter. "It's bugging them to." Ace looked up wide-eyed, why was he dragging her into it?

"Uh . . .I just wanna finish my work here and . . ." Bruce looked at Ace nervously, as though she could help him get out of the spotlight.

"Doctor? Ace?"

"'A warm light for all man kind' Loki's jab at Fury about the cube." Bruce began.

"I heard it." Steve replied.

"I think that was meant for you." He said pointing to Stark. "Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."

"The Stark Tower?" Ace questioned.

"That big ugly . . ." Tony shot the captain a look "building in New York?"

"It's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy source." Bruce explained.

"Right, that building will power itself for what, a year?" Ace finished up for him.

"It's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

"So why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I should look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure photos."

"I'm sorry, did you say . . .?"

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?"

"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around." Steve retorted.

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically not awesome."

"Steve, I've been with this agency for four years, you know that. In that time I've learned when to keep my mouth shut and when to pay attention, and on this one something is just not right."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have our orders we should follow them." Ace lowered her head at that. The only time she'd ever refused orders was when she refused without leeway to work on weapons outside of Clint's arrows.

"Following is not really my style." Stark replied.

"And you're all about style aren't you." Steve shot back.

"Of the people in this room, which one is; A. wearing a spangly outfit, and B. Not of use?" Ace winced at that, but had to admit that at the moment, in a lab, Steve couldn't contribute.

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" Ace said softly, looking up at her friend. He looked at her as though considering the possibility, but his loyalty as a soldier won out and he marched out of the lab.

"Just find the cube."

"That's the guy that my dad never shut up about? Wondering if they shouldn't have left him on ice." Stark sneered.

"The guy's not wrong about Loki." Bruce reminded. "He does have the jump on us."

"What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit." Stark replied. "It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm going to be there when it does."

"And I'll read about it." Both Bruce and Ace said.

"Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."

"Not an Avenger." Ace pointed out.

"Ah, see. I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

"If your not an Avenger why so involved?" Stark pointed out, then turned to Bruce. "You, know I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart." He pointed to the mini arc reactor in his chest. "This stops it. This little circle of light. It's part of me now, not just armor. It's a . . . terrible privilege." Ace soaked that in.

"But you can control it." Bruce pointed out.

"Because I learned how." Tony said and Ace got where he was going with his story.

"It's different."

"Hey, I've read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you." Stark pointed out.

"So you're saying that the Hulk . . .the other guy . . .saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"

"I guess we'll find out." Ace replied smiling.

"You might not like that." He replied.

"You just might." Stark returned.


	14. Chapter 14

After a couple hours Stark's computer signaled that he had successfully hacked the system and turned to her and grinned.

"Let's see what we can find out about you my friend." He said pulling up her file. "Mother: Selene Davis A.K.A. Luna Duncan, A.K.A. Mother Wolf -mutant, living at Xavier Institute. Father: Remy LeBeau A.K.A. Gambit - mutant, living in New Orleans. Sister: Fleur Davis A.K.A. Bones - mutant, living at Xavier Institute. Brother: Jack LeBeau A.K.A. Wild Card - mutant, living at Xavier Institute. Non Mutant. Approached for recruitment upon request by Remy LeBeau. Genius level intelligence, high capacity for learning, talented in mechanics and technological equipment. Most noteworthy creations since being with S.H.I.E.L.D.: multi-purpose arrows for Agent Barton, multi-functional scanner, personalized wrist cuff for aforementioned scanner, helicarrier . . ." Stark paused and looked at her. "You created this ship?" Ace just beamed. "Pallidum antidote for Tony Stark. Last leave taken . . . two years ago? Refuses to work on weaponry. Performs well in field. Received four stitches at top and base of spine from misfired, experimental arrow. Received four broken ribs, a punctured lung, laceration needing eighteen stitches and concussion, in field when vehicle was attacked by "Abomination". Received blood transfusion, and ten stitches, in field from explosion debris penetrating arm, while recording battle between Asgardians and "Destroyer". Note not allowed on air transport vessels unsupervised, unless has form of mental stimulation."

"That's actually in my file?!" Ace said, unable to believe her eyes or ears.

"Were you born an agent?" Stark asked, finishing going through her file.

"I want to know why she's not allowed to fly by herself." Bruce threw in chuckling.

"No, I wasn't born an agent. And the reason behind that is because I might have made a jet drop a couple thousand feet mid flight, by tinkering with the electrical system." Her voice went up a couple octaves at the end of her explanation and she turned and busied herself with her scanner, getting it caught on a picture of her and Pitor. "Where did that come from? I thought I deleted it."

"Oh boyfriend?" Tony ask seeing it over her shoulder.

"Ex. He dumped me for being too focused on my work."

"Ouch." Bruce winced.

"It was a couple years ago, and never really bothered me to start with." She quickly deleted the picture and returned to her work.

Bruce looked up at Ace who was working on something across the room, before looking back to his monitor.

"I saw that." Tony said, smiling to himself.

"What?" Bruce replied, a blush tinting his cheeks.

"That's the fourth time in ten minutes you looked up at her. Why don't you just ask her out already?"

"She's a little young for me don't you think?" Bruce replied.

"Only if she thinks so." Tony pointed out. "I've seen the way she looks at you, I think you stand a chance." Bruce looked back up at Ace, recalling the way she'd touched his back when Loki had called him a mindless beast. "Five."

"Even if I wanted to the other guy makes relationships a little complicated, and dangerous."

"She grew up around mutants, I think she can deal with dangerous and complicated." Bruce thought about that carefully. Tony had a point. "Hey Mini-me." Ace sat up a bit straighter, then slowly turned to face them. "What do you like to do for fun?" She blinked, repeatedly then looked around. "I like to tinker." She replied, then turned back to her work. "It's why Coulson calls me a workaholic, why it would surprise none of the crew to see my legs poking out from a panel in any part of the ship, why Fury would tease me about if the ship was ever going to be finished."

"Ok, what about something that doesn't involve tinkering what do you like to do. I for example like to collect my cars." Ace froze again, this time for much longer as though asking herself that question. Finally after several long minutes of complete silence she shrugged, bending back over her work.

"I don't know."

"I swear you had to have been born an agent." Tony said again shaking his head.


	15. Chapter 15

Fury walked in and looked surprised to see Stark, Bruce and Ace stopped working on the scepter looking at him, confused.

"What are you doing Mr. Stark?" Fury demanded.

"Uh . . .kind of been wondering the same thing about you." Stark replied.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are." Ace informed. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for a signature now."

"When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile." Bruce added.

"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss." Stark put in, then looked at his monitor. "What is phase 2?" Steve dropped a HYDRA weapon on the table next to Ace causing everyone to look at him and he looked pissed.

"Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. used the cube to make weapons." He said, it suddenly became painfully clear why they had kept her off the project. "Sorry the computer was moving a little slow."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean . . ."

"I'm sorry, Nick." Stark interrupted turning his monitor around to show them the plans for the weapons. "What were you lying?"

"I was wrong, director. The world hasn't changed a bit." Steve bit out.

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked Ace, as Natasha and Thor walked in the room.

"Of course not. I don't work with weapons."

"Then what is your precious prototype?" Fury snapped, facing her.

"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" Natasha asked.

"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed." Bruce pointed out.

"Loki is manipulating you." Natasha inferred.

"And you've been doing what exactly?"

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because you suddenly get a little twitchy." Banner threw back.

"I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction." Ace snapped.

"Because of him." Fury announced, pointing to Thor.

"Me?" The demi-god said, confused.

"Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, out-gunned." Fury clarified.

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet."

"But you're not the only people out there, are you. And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the cube." Steve threw out.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" Ace asked.

"Your people forced our hand. We had to come up with something." Fury defended.

"Nuclear deterrent. Cause that always calms everything down." Stark said sarcastically.

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark." Fury threw back. Chaos broke out among the team with that last shot and everyone started yelling at each other.

"You speak of control yet you court chaos." Thor said loudly.

"It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're . . .we're a time bomb." Bruce relayed.

"You need to step away." Fury said, keeping his eyes on the doctor.

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Stark asked, throwing an arm around Steve.

"You know damn well why! Back off!" Steve said, shoving Stark away from him.

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me." Stark replied, coming face to face with the captain.

"Big man in a suit of armor take that off and what are you?" Steve asked.

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." Tony answered easily.

"I know more guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire." Stark replied, buffering Steve's sting with logic.

"Always a way out . . .you know, you might not be a threat, but you better stop pretending you're a hero." Steve threw out.

"A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!" Stark threw back.

"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds." Steve challenged. Thor started laughing.

"You people are so petty . . .and tiny." The Asgardian said, and Ace started to wonder if he was high. Stark rubbed his head as though feeling the effects of something himself.

"Yeah, this is a tee . . ."Banner started to say.

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his . . ."

"Where? You rented out my room."

"The cell was just in case . . ." Ace started to explain.

"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know! I've tried!" That got everyone's attention. "I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out!" Ace put a hand over her mouth, she was not one to be subject to her emotions, always letting logic rule over her, but that thought, the idea of this brilliant man wanting to kill himself did affect her. "So I moved on. I focused on helping people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk." Banner finished, glaring at Natasha. "You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff?" Ace held her breath watching Bruce closely. Her prototype laying just a few feet away if she needed it. "You want to know how I stay calm?"

"Doctor Banner . . ." She called softly. "Put down the scepter." Bruce looked down, surprised to see he was holding the weapon. The computer started beeping and they all turned to it.

"Got it." Stark called. Bruce put down the weapon, walking with her to the computer.

"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my little party trick after all." He said, trying to make light of the situation. Ace patted his back giving a small smile.

"Located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.

"I can get there faster." Stark threw out.

"Look all of us . . ."

"The Tesseract belongs to Asgard, no human is a match for it." Thor replied. Stark turned to leave but Steve went to stop him.

"You're not going alone!" He commanded.

"You gonna stop me?" Stark asked.

"Put on the suit, let's find out." Steve challenged again.

"I'm not afraid to hit an old man." Stark warned.

"Put on the suit." Ace and Bruce turned back to the monitor and noticed something about the Tesseract.

"Oh my god." The both muttered.


	16. Chapter 16

An explosion threw everyone in every direction, but Natasha, Bruce and Ace fell down into the lower equipment room. Ace groaned, as pandemonium erupted. Alarms sounded, extinguishers were going off. Agents rushing by to get to their positions. Looking to see where the others were and was surprised to see Natasha was near by, looking worried as the doctor breathed hard. He was grasping the metal grating of the floor trying to maintain control. Ace noticed that his usually dark eyes were a bright green and his face was intense, he was fighting a losing battle.

"I'm ok, we're ok right." Natasha said quietly and mostly to herself. Ace reached out grabbing Natasha hoping to get her out of harms way, before it was too late.

"Doctor . . .Bruce, you got to fight it." Ace called softly, seeing his face changing.

"This is just what Loki wants." Natasha added. "We're gonna be ok. Listen to me." Two soldiers started moving to check on them but Ace quickly waved them away and they scrambled out of there. "We're going to be ok. Right? I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away and never . . ."

"Your life?" Bruce spat back bitterly his voice more of a growled threat. Another explosion rocked the carrier, distracting Ace as she looked around her at the hull of the ship, fearing for her big baby, missing Bruce's transformation as the lights went out.

"Bruce." Natasha called, pleadingly, bringing Ace's attention back to the doctor as the man gave the two of them one last knowing look. The two women worked on freeing Natasha when the Russian froze. Hulk turned facing them, and Natasha bolted up the stairs the monster chasing after her and without hesitation Ace started chasing after him.

"I'm insane, I'm insane, I'm insane." She kept telling herself as she chased after them. "Ace Diane LeBeau only you would think to chase after a giant, green, rage monster while your ship is being destroyed." They came into view and Hulk moved to hit Natasha, but Ace quickly wove around him, stretched out her arms showing she was unarmed and kept her head lowered in submission. A pose she had learned well over the years after dealing with a feral, short-tempered sister. "We are not your enemies, Bruce" She called to him. "Try to think." Slowly she raised her eyes to meet his and had her breath taken by the bright green jewels staring at her, measuring her. Then Thor's hammer slammed into his face. Hulk roared and Thor tackled him into the next room.

"I'm going to kill you, Thor." She muttered, before turning back to Natasha who looked completely petrified. "Nat, are you ok?" Slowly the agent looked at her and nodded. Ace stood up and made her way to the air craft port, unable to stave off her curiosity about the creature that could easily crush her with a flick of his wrist. Ducking behind a crate she watched as Thor uppercut Hulk sending him crashing into a fighter jet. Hulk stood up shaking his head confused by what just happened, quickly shaking it off he angrily ripped the tail off the jet and hurled it at Thor like it was a frisbee.

Thor struggled under the tail before jumping up and throwing Mjolnir with all his strength, knocking Hulk back. The green guy tried to lift the hammer but couldn't, making him angrier the more he tried. Seeing an advantage as Hulk struggled with the hammer Thor rushed up and kneed Hulk in the face.

Ace frowned when her built in link to her cell started ringing on her cuff. She quickly answered it just so she would not be drawn into the battle between Titans.

"Ace, mon ami, look there's something I feel I should tell you." Remy's voice rung out from the cuff to her ears.

"Dad this really isn't the best time." She said watching Hulk knock Thor down only to pick him up by his throat.

"Well make it the best time. You are always either working on a new project, or on a mission so you never have time to . . . is that gun fire?"

"Yeah!" Ace said loudly as a 606 started firing at the Hulk. One of the bullets missed, and hit her cuff, cracking the screen and ending communications with her and her dad. "Damn it." Hulk let out a primal roar at the jet, then took a running jump at it. "No!" She yelled, coming out of her hiding spot as Hulk landed on the aircraft. She had grown fond of the doctor over the last couple days and couldn't see this ending well. Thor grabbed her pulling her back.

"You can not help him." He said as they watched Hulk destroy the 606, causing it to explode and him to go plummeting to earth. Thor left her there as she stared out into the void where Hulk fell. When everything finally got quite she went up to her lab and stared at her prototype for a few minutes. She could almost physically feel the change in her as with a determined resolve she never knew she could feel, she grabbed her prototype and quickly changed into her mission clothes, then made her way to the flight deck getting on board one of the quinjets that made it through the battle. Waiting. For once she was choosing to leave her lab.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: I haven't died, nor have I stopped this story, it is fully written out, and I am currently working on a sequel. Just things have been complicated lately and it has been hard to update. But please enjoy Chapter 17 of Agent Ace Le Beau. Peace and Love.**

"What are you doing here mini-me?" Stark asked seeing her in the jet.

"I'm going to kick some alien ass." She replied, staring at Clint curiously until Natasha grabbed her shoulder and nodded.

"With a sword?" Ace looked at her prototype gleaming in the sunlight.

"Not just a sword." She replied, grabbing the hilt.

"You're not an Avenger." Iron Man said giving the same excuse she had wielded the previous night.

"If I'm not then why am I so involved." She shot back his own words. Stark looked at the others around the jet, who were just watching.

"Am I the only one who's going to try and stop her?" He asked the team.

"She looks pretty determined to me." Steve said, recognizing the look in her eyes.

"You're a tech person, not a warrior." Stark pointed out.

"Stark," She called looking at him. "Shut up. I'm tired of everyone telling me what I am. I'm choosing to fight." She sat down and strapped herself in.

"Are you sure it's ready?" Natasha asked.

"As ready as it'll ever be Nat." Ace replied. The loading door shut and the quinjet took off, and for once she didn't pay attention to the noises the jet was making, didn't think of different ways she could try to improve it. Instead she concentrated on all the voices that had ever told her what she was; 'you're a genius, non-mutant' 'a perfect candidate' 'the genius' 'you're normal, Ace, you have a chance at a normal life' 'brilliant and beautiful' 'never fully here when you're here' 'too busy with your next new invention to focus on us' 'smart young woman' 'workaholic' 'never have time' 'you cannot help him'. That last one kept playing over and over again in her head.

"Director Fury, could you please explain to me why I just got off the phone with a hysterical Cajun?" Selene Davis' voice called out.

"I'm assuming it has something to do with Ace." Fury replied.

"Remy is saying she's been shot."

"She has not been shot."

"Then why isn't she answering her phone?" Selene demanded like a typical mother.

"Because, Ms. Davis her actual phone is somewhere in the lab," he omitted the fact that it was probably buried under some rubble from the lab "and her cuff link was damaged."

"I want to speak to my daughter, Director Fury."

"You can't!" He snapped, starting to lose his temper. "She is not here, right now. She chose to leave on a mission." That caused Selene to pause.

"She chose . . ." As much as he tried to hide it Fury did have a certain soft spot for the young woman, and had shared her mother's concern at how withdrawn she was from anything that didn't have wires in it. Fury ended the call, then went to talk to the World Council.

Loki fired a blast of energy at the quinjet catching it on fire, but Hawkeye was able to maneuver it so they didn't crash but the landing was still rather rough.

"Everyone alive?" Hawkeye asked, and gained various forms of 'yeah', in response. The ramp opened, Ace and Captain America running out, followed by Hawkeye and Black Widow. They arrived at a four way and everything around them seemed to stop as a deep roar bellowed out, and a shadow fell over them. Leviathan. That was the only word that came to Ace's mind as she saw the whale like creature fly over them. Chitauri flung themselves off the creature crashing into buildings.

"Stark are you seeing this?" Captain America asked.

"I'm seeing, still working on believing. Where's Banner has he shown up yet?"

"Banner?" Ace called back into her comm.

"Just keep me posted." Iron Man responded. The small group ran behind taxis, trying to find a foothold into the battle. They looked up to see Loki leading a group of Chitauri down the street, firing in a chain of explosions, smashing cars and hurling people around. A crowd ran straight at them and Captain America looked over to the bridge.

"Those people need assistance down there." Ace looked and spotted Chitauri soldiers landing near a group of people and firing at them. Black Widow pulled out her pistols, turning to the soldier.

"We got this. It's good. Go!" She informed.

"You think you can hold them off?" He asked Hawkeye. Ace looked at her friends, then at the man leading them.

"Captain." Hawkeye replied, pulling a trigger on his bow, another of her upgrades, that mechanically chose his arrows. "It would be my genuine pleasure." He shot an arrow and the two remaining took off running to the plaza, jumping over exploding cars. They jumped on a car in front of a couple cops, who looked like they'd never seen Captain America before.

"I need men in these buildings. There are people inside that can run into the line of fire. You take them through the basement or through the subway. You keep them off these streets. I need a perimeter as far back as 39th." He ordered.

"Why the hell should I take orders from you?" The older looking cop asked. An explosion came up from behind them, an energy blast Cap deflected with his shield. Two Chitauri soldiers attacked them and Ace easily brought her sword up and cleanly sliced the head off one. After the display the cop turned around and relayed Cap's orders. Ace hopped off the car, flicked a small switch on her hilt causing the sword to extend and go limp as it transformed into a whip, covered in blades.

"Oh the jokes Stark would have about this." She muttered, as she swung her weapon out attacking alien after alien, always keeping in step with Captain America.


	18. Chapter 18

They made their way back to Hawkeye and Black Widow, instantly joining in their own battle, using her sword/whip to lash, slice and stab any Chitauri that approached, until lightning blasted down from the sky, firing electricity down at the soldiers around them. The Chitarui convulsed then fell to the ground dead. Thor touching down before them.

"What's the story upstairs?" Captain asked.

"The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable." Thor informed.

"Thor is right. We gotta deal with these guys." Stark said over their comms.

"How do we do this?" Black Widow asked.

"As a team." Captain replied.

"I have unfinished business with Loki." Thor told them.

"Yeah, get in line." Hawkeye threw out, and Ace's hand tightened on the hilt of her blade.

"Save it." She snapped. "Loki's got to keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top he's going to need us . . ." She trailed off spotting Bruce arriving on a motorized bike. Upon seeing him, Ace's body only reacted and she found herself, quickly closing the distance between them, flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him. Pulling away she really wasn't sure who was more surprised by her actions, Dr. Banner who had an obvious look of surprise on his face, she who had never done something so thoughtless before, or the team watching her, all of them with the exception of Thor, knowing her to be generally unaffected by compulsions.

"Aww, Ace is finally growing up." Hawkeye stated and she blushed deeply.

"Well . . ." Dr. Banner said, looking around. "This all seems horrible."

"I've seen worse." Black Widow, threw out and the scientist looked sheepish.

"Sorry."

"No. We could use a little worse." She assured.

"Stark?" Ace called, becoming composed again. "We got him."

"Banner?" Stark's voice rang back.

"Just like you said." Captain America, replied, a small smile on his face.

"Then tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you." Iron Man came out from behind a building a leviathan following him.

"I . . .I don't see how that's a party." Black Widow commented. He swooped down the street, the leviathan swooping behind him. Banner looked back then started walking down the street, toward the giant creature.

"Dr. Banner. Now might be a really good time for you to get angry." Captain America advised.

"That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry." Bruce replied and they watched his body swell, stretch and harden as it turned green. He jumped up and smashed his fist into the leviathan causing it to flip over. Iron Man shot a laser out hitting the soft spot, blowing the creature away. Pieces of meat catching fire or sizzling as they hit the pavement.

"That was messy." Ace commented, dryly and heard Stark laugh in reply. They looked up at the portal and Ace felt the color drain from her face as more Chitauri came flying out.

"Guys." Black Widow called.

"Call it, Cap." Iron Man advised.

"Alright, listen up. Until we get that portal closed up there, we're gonna use containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark you got perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out you turn it back or turn it to ash."

"Wanna give me a lift?" Hawkeye asked.

"Right. Better clench up, Legolas." Stark said, lifting the archer off the ground.

"Thor, you've gotta to try to bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You've got the lightning. Light the bastards up." Thor flew up to the tower, and Captain turned to the two women. "You and me, we stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here. And Hulk." The green humanoid looked down at the star spangled man. "Smash." The Hulk grinned then leapt up onto the buildings.

"So, anyone want to talk about Ace kissing the good doctor?" Hawkeye called on the comms.

"Really Barton, now?" Ace growled, slicing through alien soldiers.

"What better time to discuss our favorite genius becoming more social than in the middle of a battle for the earth?" Black Widow teased.

"I thought I was everyone's favorite genius." Stark called, and the comms went deathly silent.

"Stark. You got a lot of strings sticking to your tail." Hawkeye called, getting back to business.

"Just try and keep them off the streets."

"Well they can't bank worth a damn. Find a tight corner."

"I will roger that." Ace got knocked into a street vendor's stall that contained a bunch of masks and grinning picked up a white "bandit" mask and slipped it over her eyes, before going back into the battle.

"Cute." Black Widow commented seeing her.

"Nice call what else you got?" She heard Iron Man call over the comms.

"Well, Thor's taking on a squadron down on 6th." Hawkeye replied.

"And he didn't invite me."

"Captain, none of this is gonna mean a damn thing if we don't close that portal." Black Widow pointed out.

"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it." Captain America pointed out.

"Maybe it's not about guns." Ace remarked, gesturing to the Chitauri charriots.

"You wanna get up their you're gonna need a ride."

"I got a ride. I could use a lift though." Black Widow informed, backing up.

"Are you sure about this?" Captain asked, lifting up his shield and angling it for her.

"Yeah, it'll be fun." Black Widow replied, and Ace thought she sounded like she was encouraging herself. The assassin took off running boosting herself up by jumping off a car and being launched off the shield, where she grabbed a chariot that was passing over head.

"You ready for this kid?" Cap asked, moving over to Ace.

"Ready as I'll ever be." The two stood back to back attacking anything that came to them. One tried to pin her with its energy rifle and getting fed up with it, she hit the switch on the hilt, converting it to a whip and lashed at it wrapping the whip around it's neck and pulling tight causing the indestructible metal to slice through the alien's neck like it was air.

"Captain, the bank on 42nd past Madison, they caught a lot of civilians there." Hawkeye informed.

"We're on it." He replied, motioning for Ace to follow him. They jump through the window to the bank and while Captain killed the bomber she walked up and stabbed one in the back, while the other two fired at Cap who kicked a desk at them. He jumped over the desk headlocking one and Ace decapitated the last. A Chitauri soldier attacked him from behind, removing his helmet.

"Everyone move out!" He called as the bomb started beeping faster. Ace rushed out with the civilians, and turned back to the bank, watching anxiously as the bomb went off sending the captain flying out of the window and landing on a car.

"Captain!" She yelled, rushing over to him. He hopped off the car and the two looked around the destroyed city, as police and fire crews came to evacuate the civilians. "Oh, Captain." Ace said quietly, despair starting to settle in. For every one they killed it seemed like three more were taking its place.

"Hey now, it's not over yet. Now show me the fearless warrior who only quits once she ends up in the hospital."


	19. Chapter 19

At some point Thor joined the two and as he and Captain America threw their respective weapons she lashed out with her whip. An energy blast hit Captain hard, Thor rushed over to a car hitting it with his hammer flipping it over, crushing a couple of Chitauri in the process. Ace grabbed the captain's hand and helped him up. The man lifted up his shield and looked at them.

"You ready for another bout?" Thor asked.

"What? You getting sleepy?" Captain returned. "How are you holding up, Ace?"

"I can still move so I must be alright." She threw back, but the truth was she was wearing down, even with all the training she'd gone through with Clint her body wasn't used to this kind of constant assault.

"I can close it!" Black Widow called over the comms. "Can anybody hear me? I can close the portal down!"

"Do it!" Cap barked.

"No, wait!" Iron Man yelled.

"Stark, theses things are still coming!" Ace called back.

"I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it." Ace looked up at the portal in understanding. "Stark, you know that's a one way trip?" The entire time she never took her eyes off him or the portal, hoping that he'd somehow make it. The sight of a supernova coming through the portal was enough to take her breath away.

"Close it." She heard Captain tell Black Widow, and she searched the sky looking for Stark. "Son of a gun." There he was falling back to the city.

"He's not slowing down." Thor pointed out and she heard the whistling sound of him spinning his hammer. He took off into the sky just as Hulk jumped up and snagged Iron Man out of the air, cradling him as he crashed into a building, sliding down. Hulk placed Stark on the ground and Ace rushed over to the big guy and looked down at the ego-centric man. Thor pulled his helmet off and she bit her lip, he looked dead. Suddenly Hulk roared and Tony jolted awake. Ace let out a shaky sigh patting Hulk on his large arm.

"What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me no body kissed me?"

"We won." Captain told him, smiling.

"Alright. Hey. Alright. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."

"We're not finished yet." Thor reminded, looking up at the tower.

"And the shawarma after." Tony suggested.

They get to the pent house and watch Loki crawl over to the stairs, before turning to see them.

"If it's all the same to you. I'll have that drink." He told them, and Hulk snorted.

A few weeks later they were standing in Central Park, Loki was cuffed and muzzled. Thor shook hands with everyone, stopping just a moment to speak to Ace.

"You are a warrior worthy of the halls of Valhalla." He told her and Ace couldn't believe her ears, as the demi-god moved to hug Selvig. Tony opened the Tessereact case and Bruce took the cube and placed it in a glass tube handing it to Thor who held it to his brother who reluctantly took the end proffered and the two Asgardians leapt into the energy beam and disappeared.

Tony looked at Bruce after the scientist climbed into his car.

"What?" He asked.

"Aren't you going to say anything to her? She did kiss you."

"It was a heat of the moment thing." They both watched as she climbed into a car with Clint and Natasha.

"Hm, then how come she only kissed you? She didn't kiss Barton, or Thor or even me and we all know how irresistible I am." Bruce said nothing as the car drove away. "That's ok. I already put her number in your phone for you." Tony said, pulling away.


	20. Chapter 20

Ace walked into the gym and picked up the picture like always staring at the face of Bucky, next to the captain.

"You keep staring at that photo like that and I'm going to start thinking that you're falling in love with a memory." Steve called, coming out of the locker room.

"What do you do when it's over, Steve?" She asked. He looked at her confused. "When the fight is over and all that's left are the pieces what do you do?"

"I'm not sure, the fight wasn't over when I went under. I suppose you pick up the pieces and try to live your life as normal as possible."

"Where do you start?" Since the battle in New York Ace had felt strange. It was akin to the feeling someone gets after finishing a really good book, a sort of displaced feeling, like they're seeing everything around them differently and don't know what to do with themselves.

"How about we start by helping clean up the city." Steve suggested, and Ace nodded she could do that. They left the gym, getting on his motorcycle and heading to the city to help with the clean up. While they were helping sweep up debris a news reporter walked up to them, gaining their attention.

"Excuse me, what do you think about these "super heros"?" She asked.

"I'm glad they're here." Ace told the reporter. "I saw what happened that day. This mess we're cleaning up could be a whole lot worse if they hadn't contained it to these few blocks."

"Don't you think they should be helping clean it up though? Taking responsibility for their mess?"

"Who's to say their not? There were seven people out here that day, how do you know you haven't already talked to at least one of the heros? I think the big question you should be asking is about the aliens that attacked us." With that Ace turned away from the reporter smirking at the captain who just smiled back.

"He really would have loved you." He said, and this time she looked at him confused. "Bucky."

"Why because I'm so young and this smart?" She asked, recalling his words from the last time they had a conversation very similar to this.

"No that would have drawn him to you, it draws everyone to you. He would have loved you for your fearlessness, and your passion and your honor."

"What was he like?" Ace couldn't help but ask. This was the most she'd ever heard him speak of before he was frozen.

"He was the same, fearless, passionate, honorable. Tried to talk me out of joining the army because he was afraid I'd get arrested for falsifying my papers. He was a bit of a ladies man too, he loved the dames I don't doubt though that for the right one he would have ignored all the others." Ace smiled listening as the captain told her the story, of his trying to join the army, and being chosen for the SSR project. How he hated doing the war bond skit, how when he made it over seas to talk to the troops he found out about Bucky being behind enemy lines, that he fought his way to his friend and that was where he saw Red Skull. He told her how he and several of those he helped escape formed a team. He haltingly told her about the train, where Bucky died saving him. He told her about his battle with Red Skull and the power he glanced from the Tesseract. What caught her attention the most though was when he spoke of Peggy Carter, the affection that was in his voice as he spoke of the woman that was by his side from the moment he joined the army.

Since the helicarrier was being repaired those that had been stationed on board were back at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s main base, and when Ace returned she used her skills with a computer to track down Peggy for Steve and couldn't help but smile when she saw that the woman was still alive. While she was at it she pulled up all she could find on Bucky, making a copy of the picture they had of him.

"Ace what are you doing?" Clint asked, walking into the room.

"Some digging for Steve." She replied. Ace went to search for something else, but he quickly grabbed her hands and pulled her to her feet,

"Nope. I'm not about to let you retreat back into your world of wires and monitors." He informed, as he tugged her out of the room.

Ace found that Steve Rogers otherwise known as Captain America was right. Once you start picking up the pieces life seems to fall back into place. He was speechless when she presented him with the information on Peggy and the picture of Bucky. Clint and Natasha took her out to socialize whenever any of them were off mission, and she found that a life away from machines wasn't so terrible.

 **Ace Le Beau will return.**


End file.
